Violence Against Women and Girls

We aim to:

• improve public trust and confidence in the police response to VAWG.
• hold the police to account for their response to VAWG.  
• identify and share learning from VAWG cases to improve policing practice and prevent future harm.  
• ensure the public understand our role within the police handling of VAWG matters. 

Our definition of Violence against Women and Girls is:

The term ‘violence against women and girls’ refers to acts of violence or abuse that we know disproportionately affect women and girls. Crimes and behaviour covered by this term include rape and other sexual offences, domestic abuse, stalking, ‘honour’-based abuse (including female genital mutilation, forced marriage, and ‘honour’ killings), as well as many others, including offences committed online."  

When we use the definition, we are referring to circumstances where at least one victim is a woman or a girl (including transgender women and girls) or is perceived as such.    

Our work will include all matters falling within our definition, with a focus on police perpetrated VAWG. Child sexual abuse investigations are covered under our existing core work, including Operation Linden, our investigations centred around Rotherham. 

Although we have recently refocused our efforts in this area, we have a history of tackling issues relating to VAWG.

In recent years:  

• We have published an issue of our Focus guidance on violence against women and girls (VAWG). This publication is a practical guide for complaint handlers on the handling of police complaints and recordable conduct matters involving VAWG. It supports them to handle complaints appropriately and improves standards.
• We have published an issue of our Learning the lessons magazine with a focus on violence against women and girls (VAWG). This issue raises awareness of the key issues we see through our work and highlights tangible learning opportunities improve the policing response to VAWG.   
• We launched a campaign to support women and girls to access the police complaints system, and to have confidence to raise a complaint if they need to.
• We published our guide, Ending victim blaming: violence against women and girls: Why language, attitudes, and behaviours matter.
• We published our Violence against women and girls (VAWG) end-to-end case handling full report, and short summary report, in which we reviewed 121 complaint and conduct matters files in police forces where violence against women and girls was a factor.
• We worked closely with the College of Policing, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services on the Centre for Women’s Justice super complaint into Police Perpetrated Domestic Abuse. We then published a summary of our findings into the work by police forces in England and Wales to tackle police perpetrated domestic abuse (PPDA). This will support forces in responding to the serious issue of domestic abuse perpetrated by police, and build greater trust and confidence in the police.
• We've published our joint investigation report with HMICFRS and College of Policing into a super-complaint made by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust on behalf of the National Stalking Consortium, on the police response to stalking.
• We published statistical analysis of referrals relating to violence against women and girls to help identify where improvements can be made and provide comparator data for future analysis.
• We launched a national campaign to raise awareness of the Silent Solution system.
• We shared learning recommendations with the police in this area, such as our report into Operation Hotton which uncovered significant issues around sexism, harassment and misogyny at Charing Cross police station.
• We published a Learning the Lessons magazine dedicated to the abuse of power for sexual purpose within policing.
• We worked closely with the NPCC, Women’s Aid and Welsh Women’s Aid to help raise awareness of the #youarenotalone campaign.